California State Board of Education
July 12–13, 2017 Agenda Summary

The following table is a summary of items on the agenda for the State Board of Education (SBE) meeting held on July 12–13, 2017. The items included are ones that pertain primarily to assessment or accountability. To download the entire agenda, view specific items, or to view the Webcast, select the following link:

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Item # / Subject
Item 1 / Subject: Developing an Integrated Local, State, and Federal Accountability and Continuous Improvement System: Approval of the Suspension of the Academic Performance Index; Approval of Eligibility Criteria for Alternative Schools; Update on the California School Dashboard; and Continued Developmental Work of Evaluation Rubrics.
This item was…
Summary:
  • This item asks for the SBE to:
  • Suspend the Academic Performance Index (API)
  • Approve eligibility criteria that schools must meet to quality for alternative status, which includes:
  • The “high-risk” student group definitions approved by the SBE in 2003.
  • Seven new “high-risk” definitions specified in Attachment 4.
  • District-operated special education schools be considered as “alternative” if at least 70 percent of the students enrolled in grades three through eight and grade eleven participated in the California Alternative Assessment (CAA).
  • Attachment 1 provides an update on the California School Dashboard
  • No substantial changes to the “look and feel” for fall 2017
  • Significant functionality changes for fall 2017 based on input from stakeholders, including:
  • Printer friendly reports (enabling the use of PDFs)
  • Increased search functionality to view all schools in a district
  • Mobile response page displays
  • Ensuring a high-quality Spanish translation using Google Translate
  • Reporting updates including more information in the Detailed Reports to show multiple years of data for status and to provide additional information such as the percent of students groups in each performance level for a specific indicator.
  • Attachment 2 provides an update on the College/Career Indicator Workgroup
  • The College/Career Indicator Workgroup is charged with identifying additional measures of career preparedness that might be available and ready for the fall 2017 release of the California School Dashboard.
  • Based on their work, no additional career measures will be incorporated into the fall 2017 Dashboard release– see Attachment 2 for more information about the measures that were considered in the area of CTE, California Partnership Academies, and Work Experience data.
  • At the September 2017 SBE meeting, the CDE will provide a recommendation about collecting additional data via CALPADS on program attributes.
  • Attachment 3 provides an update on the California Advisory Task Force on Alternative Schools.
  • This new Task Force meet for the first time in May 2017 and is funded by the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities.
  • The goal is to develop indicators for alternative schools that evaluate the success and progress of these schools based on the LCFF state priorities and accountability requirements included in ESSA.
  • The Task Force will consider options for inclusion in the fall 2018 Dashboard release.

Item 2 / Subject: Developing an Integrated Statewide System of Support for Local Educational Agencies and Schools: Proposed Goal and Characteristics of an Integrated System and Regional Structure for Providing Coordinated Support Across State and Federal Programs.
This item was presented for informational purposes only.
No action was requested or taken.
Summary:
  • This item builds upon an initial support structure described to the SBE in August 2016. This item is one in a continuing series about developing an integrated system of support for LEAs and schools needing assistance.
  • This item addresses key policy issues around developing a statewide integrated system of support based on the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) that were identified in a June 2017 Information Memorandum (
  • The June 2017 Information Memorandum describes an approach for integrating elements of state policy and federal programs, including those covered by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) state plan, into a coherent system that maximizes available resources to support LEAs (which include school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools) and schools in meeting the needs of all the students they serve. It is not intended as a proposed plan for delivering support and therefore does not propose operational detail or attempt to define what assistance will look like.
  • Another June 2017 memorandum included data simulations of the number of LEAs identified for support under LCFF and different options for identifying schools for support under the ESSA statute ( Those simulations highlight the potential scope of LEAs and schools that will be identified for additional support under California’s integrated system of support.
  • In addition, this item includes a proposed regional structure, designed from research and stakeholder feedback, for implementing the statewide system of support. The proposed regional structure will consistent of one or more COEs applying through a competitive process to be the regional lead for assistance and support activities. The regional leads would be critical to coordinating supports provided sot LEAS and schools across all state and federal programs.
  • The CDE requests feedback from the SBE before soliciting additional feedback from local educators and stakeholders.

Item 3 / Subject:Update on the Development of the California State Plan for the Every Student Succeeds Act.
This item was presented for informational purposes only.
No action was requested or taken.
Summary:
  • CDE provided an update about the stakeholder engagement work that they have been involved in over the last several months to ensure that California’s ESSA Plan reflects priority needs of a diverse set of stakeholders.
  • Attachment 1 provides a summary of the proposed revisions to the draft plan.
  • Attachment 2 provides the methodology for identifying the lowest-performing five percent of schools.
  • The final ESSA State Plan will be presented to the SBE for their approval in September 2017.

Item 4 / Subject:California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress: Begin the Process of Approving Renewal of Educational Testing Service’s Administration Contract for an Additional Two Years.
This item was.
Summary:
  • This item requests SBE approval for the CDE to exercise its option to renew the current contract for an additional two years that will allow the current contractor, Educational Testing Service (ETS) to complete development of the California Science Test (CAST), the California Alternate Assessment for science (CAA for science), and the California Spanish Assessment (CSA), as well as administer the first operational year of these assessments in 2020.
  • The following areas will be negotiated:
  • Ongoing administration of all components of the CAASPP system
  • Technical work associated with preparing and administering the operational assessments currently under development (e.g., CAST, CAA for Science; and CSA)
  • Enhancements to the reporting of student results, including increasing translations of student reports and paperless reporting options
  • Enhancements to the technical hosting solution to allow for future growth and scalability
  • A draft contract amendment will be presented to the SBE no later than January 2018.

Item 5 / Subject: Adoption of the California English Learner Roadmap State Board of Education Policy: Educational Programs and Services for English Learners.
This item was.
Summary:
  • This item proposes the adoption of a new policy that assists the CDE in providing guidance to school districts in educating English learner students.
  • The proposed policy is presented in Attachment 1. The policy outlines four key principles for serving English learner students:
  1. Principle #1: Assets-Oriented and Needs-Responsive Schools
  2. Principle #2: Intellectual Quality of Instruction and Meaningful Access
  3. Principle #3: System Conditions that Support Effectiveness
  4. Principle #4: Alignment and Articulation Within and Across Systems

Item 7 / Subject: California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress: Approve Commencement of a 15-day Public Comment Period for Proposed Amendments to California Code of Regulations, Title 5, Sections 850 through 859.
This item was.
Summary:
  • In March, 2017 the revised CAASPP regulations were circulated for a 45-day public comment period. A public hearing was held in early May, 2017. Written comments during the 45-day public comment period prompted minor revisions to the proposed regulations. This item requests the revised draft regulations to be circulated for a 15-day public comment period.
  • The revisions to the regulations include:
  • A new section of the regulations will be added to define terms “expandable items” and “expandable passages”.
  • “Expandable items” will be added to the list of approved universal tools for the CAST and the Primary Language Assessment.
  • Other minor, non-substantive editing changes.
  • If no substantive comments are received during the 15-day public comment period, the proposed regulations will be deemed adopted.

Item 8 / Subject: School Accountability Report Card: Approve the Template for the 2016-17 School Accountability Report Card.
This item was.
Summary:
  • The proposed SARC template for the 2016-17 school year was revised to:
  1. Align with the new state and federal accountability reporting requirements, including:
  • Update to the Academic Assessment Tables
  • The California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) Test Results tables in English language arts/literacy (ELA) and in mathematics have previously been displayed by student group and by grade level (one table for each, grades three through eight and grade eleven). These tables have been modified to reflect each subject displayed by student group in one table with results of combined grades (grades three through eight and grade eleven).These data are already readily available by grade level on the CDE CAASPP Web site at This modification condenses the template by 12 tables and by 12 pages (from 27 pages to 15 pages), making it a more user friendly and comprehensive accountability tool for parents and community members to gauge the performance of schools.
  • Update to the State and Federal Accountability Tables
  • In December 2015, President Barack Obama signed the ESSA which substantially changed federal accountability requirements, including the reporting elements in accountability report cards. In May 2016, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) issued guidance to states in order to ensure an orderly transition from the ESEA, as amended by No Child Left Behind, to the ESEA as amended by ESSA. The ED guidance specified that progress toward all teachers being highly qualified no longer needs to be reported in the accountability report cards beginning with the 2016–17 school year; therefore, the highly qualified teacher (HQT) table has been removed from the current template.
  1. Make the format more user-friendly and comprehensive for the parents/guardians and community members of the public, and
  2. Update the school years and fiscal years to reflect the date the data are being collected.

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